Roe v. Wade 40th: Will the Montana GOP retreat?

Today is the 40th anniversary of the historic Roe v. Wade decision. The Republican Party continues its 40 year war to overturn the decision. The battle rages on.

But there are indications that the GOP is coming to understand the political cost of advocating for forced rape births, compulsory vaginal ultrasounds, a prohibition on birth control, and other ant-abortion and anti-female nuttiness.

Hilariously, in case you missed it in the Huffington Post, last week in the Virginia legislature the Republicans proposed to Democrats a secret Grand Bargain on abortion. Moderate Republicans, spooked by the backlash to a wave of anti-abortion measures passed last year, quietly floated an idea to Democratic leaders: please keep quiet on the entire issue of abortion, and in return, we’ll help you kill any anti-abortion bills that are introduced this year.

That’s the smell of political fear. Will Montana Republicans be so spooked?

You can help keep the pressure on, by attending today’s Roe v. Wade hosted by the Montana Reproductive Rights Coalition, featuring a cross-generational panel of activists who have been on the front line for choice pre Roe v. Wade to today.

When: TUESDAY, JANUARY 22, 2013 from Noon-1pm

Where: MONTANA STATE CAPITOL ROTUNDA

The Montana Reproductive Rights Coalition includes: ACLU of Montana, NARAL Pro-Choice Montana, The Montana Human Rights Network, Blue Mountain Clinic, Planned Parenthood of Montana, The Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, AAUW of Montana, Montana League of Women Voters, Montana State Business and Professional Women, Montana Women Vote, Mountain Country Women’s Clinic, and All Families Healthcare

“These are profound changes,” says Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart and his colleagues. McInturff adds that the abortion-related events and rhetoric over the past year – which included controversial remarks on abortion and rape by two Republican Senate candidates, as well as a highly charged debate over contraception – helped shaped these changing poll numbers.

“The dialogue we have had in the last year has contributed … to inform and shift attitudes.”

During the first six years of the Bush/Cheney administration, with John Ashcroft as attorney general, a Supreme Court dominated by conservatives and both houses of congress in Republican hands, there was no move to reverse Roe v Wade.
That’s because Republicans aren’t stupid enough to give up millions of single-issue pro-life votes.
I have sympathy for those who sincerely oppose abortion on moral grounds, but they don’t realize when they’re being played.

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